Tuesday Morning
by quinndex
Summary: A story about Tuesday mornings and a young Supernatural fan.


Tuesday. It isn't a special day to most people. To almost anyone, a Tuesday is just the second day of the week, a day when you wake up and think, "Four days to the weekend." Tuesday is the day many books use as a wet, rainy starting point – take Harry Potter, for example. Tuesday is just another day we have to get through.

One wet, rainy Tuesday morning a very long time ago, I was born.

On another wet, rainy Tuesday morning, I found out my parents were divorcing.

On a third wet, rainy Tuesday morning, I woke up to find my friend had changed the alarm on my phone to play _Heat of the Moment_ by Asia. This Tuesday morning was also the day of my fourteenth birthday, and the worst day of my life.

_Heat of the Moment_ is a good song, unless you wake up to it on a Tuesday morning and you have no idea why it's playing, and you were watching a certain episode of a certain TV show the night before. _Heat of the Moment _has quite a catchy tune, and the lyrics actually mean something, unlike many songs you'd find on the music charts if you were so inclined to look up those things.

So, I woke up to _Heat of the Moment, _and I was confused until an hour later when my friend texted me to confess. Or rather, to ask if I enjoyed waking up that morning. I told her no. She wished me a very happy birthday.

It's a long time since this day, so I can't remember much of what happened. I remember it rained a lot, but since my birthday is in January that's only to be expected. I remember unwrapping a few presents – I got a few fandom t-shirts, and the friend who changed my alarm bought me salt sealed in a small jar used as a necklace pendant (it was homemade, too, so I forgave her for the _Heat of the Moment_ thing). My brother didn't bother getting me anything. Except a card. At least, I think he remembered the card.

He could drive by that time, though, and he drove me and my friends to Alton Towers because that was what we were doing for my birthday. He had to drive, because Mum had to work and we hadn't spoken to Dad in three years and it was unlikely he would drive. We didn't even know where Dad was. Or if the phone number we had still worked.

It was raining as we drove down the motorway. It wasn't just a drizzle, though, it was the full-on Katniss-Everdeen-is-shooting-arrows-of-rain-at-our -car kind of rain. The kind of rain most people slow down in. I think my brother did slow down a bit, but we wanted to get to Alton Towers so he didn't slow down much.

We were trying to play I-Spy, despite the fact that the rain meant we could see pretty much nothing, when something slammed into the side of my brother's car (okay, technically my brother lost control of the car and skidded sideways into the red Beetle we'd halway overtaken, but at the time it felt as if we'd been hit). I think the car rolled over.

My memory is a blur from then on. At some point, I got out of the car and was sat on the grass by the side of the motorway, and two of the three friends I'd invited to Alton Towers were there too, and our hair got very very wet and so did our heads and my brother and my other friend didn't get out of the car and then the police arrived and the paramedics came but we weren't sure who'd called 999 because I don't think any of us did. And the paramedics wanted to check us over but by that time I'd realised my brother was still in the car and they were pulling a dead body out of the red BMW and a girl in green was performing CPR on my friend who'd been left in my brother's car while her colleages helped in some way but I wasn't concerned with what they were doing because my brother was still in that car.

My head was spinning. Round. And round and round. And I was dizzy. That was the word I was looking for. Dizzy. Dizzier. Dizzier. The grass was so wet. I was wet, too. Soaked. Soaked and dizzy. And very, very tired.

The paramedics had another body bag.

Someone said my name.

Dizzier, dizzier.

Falling. Darkness. Dizzy, dizzy, tired and wet.

_The paramedics had another body bag._

That's when I realised. And the first thing I thought was, _I have to wake up now_.

But I was still on the grass bank by the motorway, and _Heat of the Moment_ wasn't playing and the hood of my brother's car was smashed in like someone'd used it as a trampoline and the paramedic next to me said, "That's right, honey, stay awake," and there were two body bags now even though I was almost sure the driver of the Beetle had been a lone and one of the ambulances had left with my friend in it and the grass was still very, very wet.

And I would have done anything for _Heat of the Moment _to play in my ears and to be in my bed again, to live the events of that day a hundred different ways until I found a way to save my brother, for me to find a culprit, a trickster, anyone to blame for my brother's death except for the rain he never slowed down for.

"Honey," the paramedic next to me said, but I was more interested in the body bag a few metres away from me and the bashed in hood of my brother's car and the rain that made me so very, very cold and – had someone wrapped a blanket around me? - how very, very wet my hair was, "can you tell me your name?"

I can remember these things so very clearly. As if I'm living through them again, and again, every time I replay the memories in my mind. I can remember the feel of the rain and exactly where everyone was standing and the sounds of the cars that passed by, and how my life felt like one giant blur, and I'll remember that until I die, however long passes between then and that long-ago Tuesday that I called my fourteenth birthday.

I can remember how, for the rest of the day, I convinced myself I'd wake up the next day and _Heat of the Moment_ would be playing again and my brother would still be alive. I can remember thinking I'd have a chance to save him. I can remember my denial at his death. I can remember how sure I was that I could live through a hundred of his deaths as long as I could find a way to save him in the end.

And I can remember how I felt, the next day, when I woke up and my phone screen read _Wednesday_ and there was no _Heat of the Moment_ and I knew – I knew then – that I'd seen him alive for the very last time.


End file.
